Download Sociology - Orthodox Marxism

Orthodox Marxism (Adapted from www.sociology.org)
Introduction
As is becoming traditional in this series of "Crime and Deviance" Notes, it's useful to begin this
examination of the way various Marxist conflict theorists have attempted to theorise the nature of
crime and deviance by outlining some of the main theoretical features of the perspective
involved.
Thus, these Notes are organised around three main themes:
1. An outline of Marxist conflict theory as a distinct sociological perspective.
2. A discussion of the way in which "Orthodox" or "Traditional" Marxism has examined the nature
of crime and deviance.
3. Finally, an introduction to a more-modern form of Marxist criminology, that of the "Radical
Criminology" perspective pioneered, in Britain, by the sociologists Paul Taylor, Ian Walton and
Jock Young. A further development in Marxist thinking ("New Left Realism") will also be
examined in detail.
Marxist Conflict Theory: The Theoretical Background.
Marxist Conflict theory originated through the work of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and can be initially
classified as a "Structuralist" or "macro-sociological" form of analysis (always remembering that
this simple form of theoretical pigeon-holing may obscure the fact that writers working within the
perspective may hold very different views about the nature of the relationship between
"structure" and "action").
As I've suggested above, "Marxism" - as a School of Thought - has a number of variants and
has been developed / elaborated over the past 100 or so years in ways that make it difficult to
adequately summarise here. However, what I intend to do is to introduce you to a number of
fundamental concepts in this area of sociological thought, with the focus of attention initially
being upon the way Marxists generally have theorised the nature of social existence. We can
begin, therefore, by looking at the way Marxists understand the nature of social relationships
within various societies.
Marxist forms of analysis tend to begin with the assumption that the most fundamental - and
hence most significant - forms of social relationship are those which involve the production of the
basic means of people's existence. this includes things like:
Food
Clothing
Shelter
In all societies, the provision of such things is a fundamental social necessity and it involves
devising some means whereby such things are:
Produced by a population
Distributed to people
Exchanged in some way
In addition, it is important to note that the production, distribution and exchange of such things as
food and shelter is a communal activity - people have to co-operate in some way to produce
these things. In order to produce, therefore, people are "forced" (willingly or unwillingly) to enter
into a variety of social relationships.
Marx argued that, throughout human history, the way people "co-operated" - or organised
themselves - to produce the "means of their social existence" (the kinds of things noted above)
has been different. To understand this idea - and its significance - we need to understand the
basic mechanics involved in the social production of commodities (a "commodity" is simply
defined as something that can be produced - food, a chair, a car or whatever - distributed and
exchanged).
Production of the means of social existence involves, for Marx, three basic things:
1. The Forces of Production: These "forces" involve such things as:





Land
Raw materials
Tools / Machines
Knowledge (scientific / technical and the like)
People (or, more correctly, their labour).
In the above, all we are noting is that such things are necessary - at various times in the social
development of any society - if commodities are to be produced. Thus, different societies at
different times in their historical development involve some or all of the above as part of the
general production process.
For example, in Britain in the Middle Ages, the forces of production would have involved:





Land - since this was basically an agricultural society.
Raw materials - basically anything that could be grown...
Tools - but not machines, as such.
Knowledge - but not particularly "scientific" as we might understand the term.
People - the "labour power" of peasants, for example, working on the land.
2. The Relations of Production:
People cannot produce anything without entering into various social relationships and this idea
simply encompasses the different kinds of social relationships into which people have to enter at
various times in order to produce commodities.
This involves both individual / personal relationships (for example, in the Middle Ages the main
productive relationship was between a Noble / Lord who "owned" land and the peasant / serf
who worked on the land. In our (Capitalist) society, the main productive relationship is between
an employer and an employee) and, most importantly, group relationships.
In Capitalist societies such as our own, it's possible to identify different broad social groupings groups of people who share a basically-similar position in the production process. Marx called
these groups "social classes" which will be considered shortly
3. The Means of Production:
The third, very significant element, relates to those parts of the Forces of production that can be
legally owned - for example, in Capitalist societies, land raw materials and, in some cases,
Knowledge, but not such things as "people".
According to Marx, different historical periods have different dominant means of production:
In Feudal society, land was the most important means of production.
In Capitalist society, land is still significant, but the most important means of production are
things like factories, machines and so forth.
A couple of points are important to note:
1. Some sociologists have started to argue that, in post-modern society, knowledge
becomes the most important means of production.
2. Legal ownership of the means of production is going to make you a very powerful
individual / social group.
3. Only in slave societies are workers part of the means of production (in Capitalist society,
for example, employees are not owned by their employers - all that the employer buys
(through wages) is the ability to use an employee's labour (hence, their "labour power" the ability to put someone to work)).
Marx argued that your relationship to the means of production objectively determined your social
class and, if we accept this idea for a moment, it follows that he initially identified two great
classes in Capitalist society:

The Bourgeoisie (Upper or Ruling class).
Those people (a minority) who owned the means of production.

2. The Proletariat (Lower or Working class).
Those people (the majority) who did not own the means of production.
For Marx, the concept of social class was of fundamental significance, precisely because it could
be used to explain the basis of social change (in a way that contemporary theorists could not).
Marx argued that all societies involved conflict - sometimes open but more usually submerged
beneath the surface of everyday life - that was based upon fundamental inequalities and
conflicts of interest:
The most important of these conflicts was that between social classes - the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat - and it was the constant antagonism between these two great classes that created
social change.
The basis of this conflict lies in the fact that although wealth is created by the proletariat (the
working class), it is appropriated (that is "taken away") privately - by the bourgeoisie - in the form
of profits.
In this respect, Marx noted a basic contradiction, within Capitalist social systems, between:
1. The forces of production (the things that are required to produce commodities) and
2. The relations of production (in basic terms, who benefits the most from these
arrangements).
Thus, although the forces of production involve co-operation (that is, they are fundamentally
social in nature), in Capitalist societies the relations of production have a private, individualistic,
nature. Although people necessarily co-operate to produce things (commodities from which
everyone should, ideally benefit), one class effectively exploits another by their ability to
accumulate profits in private hands.
However, if, the relationship between social classes is:
Unequal
Exploitative
Founded on a "conflict of interest",
Why do the exploited put-up with this situation? More importantly perhaps, why does society not
dissolve into a perpetual civil war - a conflict between the rich and the poor, the exploited and
the exploiters?
Marx argued that this was indeed a fundamental problem for the bourgeoisie in any Capitalist
society - and they resolve it through somehow making the proletariat believe that the economic
system is based upon freedom, fairness and equality. This is where the concepts of both
"power" and "ideology" come into the equation - and we will look at these ideas in greater detail
shortly. Fundamentally, therefore:
Capitalism involves both shared endeavours and unequal rewards. It is the (structural) nature of
this form of economic production that produces these things.
On one level, people in any society do share fundamental values, but Marx argued that this
"consensus over basic values" (which Functionalists, for example, tend to take for granted) was
by no means the whole story. In effect, Marx argued that the bourgeoisie are able to use the
power that comes from economic ownership to "control" the way in which people think about and
see the nature of the social world.
Rather than "value consensus" being a necessary, fundamental, condition for human society,
Marx saw this consensus as being manufactured by the bourgeoisie (through the primary and
secondary socialisation process, for example).
This allows us to consider the way Marx argued that economic ownership produces economic
power which in turn is translated into political and ideological power.
As we have seen, for Marx - and Marxists generally - economic relationships are seen to be the
most significant in any society because they relate to the very means of social existence itself.
However, it is evident that, in any society, there are other types of social relationship, namely
political and ideological relationships. Marx argued that these two basic types of social
relationships represented two parts of the overall nature of relationships within capitalist society:
1. Economic relationships - the "infrastructure" or "economic base" of society.
2. Political / ideological relationships - the "superstructure" of society.
Superstructural relationships, in effect, develop out of the nature of the way economic
relationships are organised (it might help you to understand this idea by visualizing the
superstructure of any society as a kind of dome that rests upon the ground (which represents the
economic base).
Although superstructural relationships are important, they ultimately rest upon the economic
base of society - according to Marxists, these kinds of relationships are dependent upon - and
reflect - the nature of economic relationships in society. Thus, if economic relationships are
fundamentally unequal, then political and ideological relationships will both reflect - and help to
reinforce - inequality. For example:
Political relationships:


Capital dominates labour in the workplace.
Requires certain types of law to cement this relationship in terms of contracts,
property rights and so forth.
For Marxists, therefore, those who dominate the economic sphere in any society will also
dominate politically and ideologically - and, in this respect, an important idea in relation to the
study of crime and deviance is that the ideology of the ruling class is the dominant ideology in
society.
To make this a little more clear, we can demonstrate this idea schematically in the following way:
An economically powerful class (the bourgeoisie) seeks to translate/reproduce its economic
power across all other institutions in society. This ensures that:
1. Their economic interests dominate the economic interests of all other classes in society.
2. All other institutions help to reproduce the economic dominance (or "hegemony") of the
bourgeoisie.
The ideology of a ruling class is the dominant ideology - there are others but economic power of
bourgeoisie ensures they are:
Not heard, marginalized, disregarded, etc.
In terms of crime:
Laws are created by bourgeoisie (or their political representatives) to basically safeguard
economic interests of bourgeoisie. For example:


Laws governing order
Laws relating to private property / contracts etc.
Traditional Marxism
In a similar way to Functionalist theory, Marxist conflict theorists see:
1. Institutions as significant objects of study, in terms of why institutions are created by
people, the kind of purpose each (inter-related) institution serves and so forth.
2. The socialisation process as significant for our understanding of both "society" and our
general position within that society.
3. Social structures - not individual meanings - are the most significant object of study.
Unlike Functionalist theory, however, Marxist conflict theorists:
1. Do not see "society" as a "living thing" that exists over and above people. They recognise
that "society" is the product of people's behaviour. If people create the social structures
within which behaviour is ordered then, of course, they are perfectly capable of changing
the social order.
2. Do not see the basis of social order as being "shared values" and basic consensus over
agreed social goals/ends. On the contrary, they see "shared values" and "consensus" as
being mystifications - a way of manufacturing and manipulating people's perception of the
social world to suit the basic interests of a ruling class.
3. See society/social systems as being in a constant - inevitable - state of conflict. Social
order exists not because it is:
a. The "natural" state of things or,
b. Because everyone is in basic agreement about how order should be
maintained and so forth.
Order exists because powerful social groups (or classes) are able to impose a sense of order,
permanence and stability upon all other classes in society.
Therefore, power is a very significant concept in Marxist theory and, as we have seen, power is
ultimately seen to derive from economic ownership. By owning the "means of production":
a. You exercise personal power over the lives of the people who work for you.
b. You make profits which can be used to wield power and influence in a wider social
setting.
In this respect, the possession of power gives you:
1. Economic power i.e. wealth and status.
2. Political power i.e. control over political institutions (government, the State)
3. Ideological power i.e. control over the way people are able to visualise and
interpret the social world. This is carried-out through various forms of
socialisation through the mass media, the workplace, the family, the
education system and so forth.
Because economic production is so fundamentally important in any society, it follows that all
other institutions in society direct their efforts towards servicing this institution. In so doing, they
are clearly subordinate to this institution and hence, those who dominate the economic sphere
will also, by default almost, dominate in all other spheres of social life.
However this is not a nice, easy, peaceful process whereby a ruling class simply transmits its
interests to all other classes in society. On the contrary, subordinate classes also have interests
which they attempt to pursue in many different ways. For example:


People try to get the best education they can.
People organize in the workplace to agitate for better working conditions, increased levels
of pay and status and so forth.
In short, there is a power struggle in society predominantly in terms of those who own the means
of production (the bourgeoisie) and those who do not (the proletariat), but also across many
other areas of social life.
One of the main ideas that should be coming through about Marxist perspectives on the social
world is that social order is not permanent and unchanging. On the contrary, although it may
appear that way in our everyday lives, the reality beneath the appearance is that people have to
continually produce and reproduce the social world by attempting to maintain and challenge
existing forms of power relationships.
Thus, the ruling class, for example, must continually reproduce capitalist forms of economic
production; since it is only by "delivering the economic goods" that their hegemony can be
maintained. The working class, on the other hand, are not simply passive consumers of a
"Capitalist dream" - they are continually organising and agitating for a grater share of power both economic and political.
In simple terms, the reason for the appearance of social order over time (even though greater or
lesser conflicts may erupt from time to time) is that one class has fundamentally greater levels of
power than other classes in society.
Society, in this sense, may have the appearance of a biological organism (where no conflict
between the various parts exists), but for Marxists this is simply an inaccurate analogy precisely because conflict is all around us in our everyday lives.
Thus, whilst Functionalist theory tends to be both politically and scientifically conservative (it is
difficult to see how things change since, according to Functionalist theory, the present state of
political and economic affairs must be the best possible, precisely because if an institution exists
it must, by definition, be functionally necessary), Marxist conflict theory is revolutionary. This is
not only because, as Marx made very clear, the historical triumph of communism as the only
free, fair and ultimately rational way of organizing social systems. It is also because it sees the
(capitalist) social world as inherently based upon conflict and power struggles.
In the above, we can start to see the likely Marxist view about the nature of crime and deviance
in capitalist society.
Task
How do you think a Marxist might approach the study of crime?
(Think about how laws are created and by whom).
Orthodox Marxism and Crime
In order to understand the Marxist approach to the study of crime, we have to initially understand
something about the theoretical background to this approach.
For orthodox Marxists, therefore, a number of ideas are evident:
Firstly, as we have seen, there is no form of human behaviour that is inherently deviant. As
Hagan ("The Disreputable Pleasures"), for example, makes clear, conceptions of crime are
clearly based upon subjective interpretations as to how we react to various forms of behaviour.
Subjective reactions are, however, only a starting point since it is evident that in order to
proscribe any form of behaviour by making it illegal, for example, a decision has to be made by
someone or some group. In short, "laws" - however self-evident and "right" people may think
them to be - are the product of conscious decisions.
Secondly, therefore, orthodox Marxists tend to begin their analysis from a position of wanting to
know how laws are created - who, for example, is included in the decision-making process and
who, of course, is excluded?
In relatively abstract terms, people who have little power in society (the vast majority) have little
or no actual say in the law creation process. People who occupy positions of power, however,
clearly do have an input into the decision-making process. If we follow the line of reasoning
developed earlier, it should be evident that, for Marxists, the people with real power in our
society are those who are economically powerful (first and foremost). These are the people who
have the most to lose if social order and stability are threatened - and conversely, they have the
most to gain from the establishment of order and stability.
In these terms, the orthodox Marxist view of crime and criminality tends to be one in which the
economically powerful make laws that (primarily) further their political and economic interests. In
relation to legal developments, therefore, the main question to ask is not simply "Who benefits
from the introduction of laws?" (Since most will clearly benefit from a law that proscribes the
killing of another person) but rather "who benefits the most?"
Thus, underlying the creation of laws, and legal systems to enforce laws, is power; in particular,
the ability to institutionalise power to the extent that it is seen as "right and proper" that certain
laws should exist. To understand this idea, we need to look briefly at the way Marxists theorise
the nature of the relationship between the "real" nature of Capitalist society and its appearance.
For Marxists, it is evident that Capitalist societies are fundamentally unequal in relation to access
to, and achievement of, social rewards (health, wealth, power, status and so forth).
Those who are "well-rewarded" (by which is meant those who own and control the means of
economic production) will, for various reasons, have more power. The "problem" for this social
class, therefore, is basically two-fold:
1. How to maintain their privileged economic / political position.
2. How to prevent others taking it away.
The "solution" can be expressed in terms of two basic ideas:
1. Firstly, a ruling class needs to be able to maintain a general form of social order - to try, in
effect, to maintain the status quo. Conflicts, where they necessarily occur, need to be
limited in both their extent and participation (that is, conflict must not be allowed to
interfere with the basic process of creating profits).
2. Secondly, the need to control the behaviour of people. This can be done in two basic
ways: by force (or the threat of force) or through socialisation.
Force may be effective in the short-term, but it also tends to create conflicts (between those
doing the enforcement and those who are subject to that force).
Socialisation, on the other hand, tends to be more effective in the long-term (since people
incorporate the basic ideology of Capitalism into their personal value systems), but it also tends
to involve giving concessions (in terms of such things as increased wages, better conditions of
employment and so forth).
Consider this
If you think about your behaviour within the classroom, for example, which is the most effective
means of trying to get you to learn?


By forcing you or
By trying to convince you that it's in your own best interests to learn?
In the above respect, legal systems are seen to develop out of inequalities of power, which, in
turn, are based upon fundamental, structurally-derived, economic inequalities.
Although the fact that legal systems - in Capitalist society - have benefits across the class
structure, the important reason for this is seen to be basically ideological; that is, it is far easier
for a ruling class to consolidate it's hegemonic role if the people who are ultimately dominated
believe in the ideology of both capitalism and "equality under the law" - a basic "socialisation
type" argument that sees the ideological framework underpinning the socialisation process as
being
that
of
a
ruling
class,
rather
than
"society
as
a
whole".
Ideologically, therefore, laws that relate to social order are based upon the idea that:
1. The capitalist production process requires some form of overall social stability (people
cannot be allowed to arbitrarily kill each other and so forth).
2. There is a need to maintain orderly social relationships at the individual/social group level
(for example, laws relating to contracts).
3. People must be legally able to own private property and there must be laws to prevent
these rights being infringed (there would, for example, be little point in creating wealth if
someone could arbitrarily take it away from you.).
In terms of social control:
In an unequal society, those who "have", need to prevent those who "have not" taking too great
a share of life's rewards.
Inequality has therefore to be rationalised ideologically and deviant behaviour that threatens the
status quo must be quashed.
Political ideas that threaten the interests of a ruling class must be both ridiculed and
marginalised (that is, seen to be the property of "cranks" or "extremists"). Thus, in the above
terms, whilst the potential for conflict is inherent in the nature of the social relationships that
characterise Capitalist society, the powerful have to devise ways of limiting and regulating these
conflicts. We can sum-up the above as it relates to crime and deviance is the following way:
1. Law in Capitalist society reflects the interests of a ruling class, mainly because this is the
most powerful class in this type of society.
However, to be effective (people must be encouraged to respect the law and so forth), laws must
appeal to as broad a range of people as possible. If people feel that they are protected under the
law, this creates a method of resolving conflicts. In addition, conflict between classes may
produce laws which, whilst not directly of benefit to a ruling class do, in the long run, act as a
"safety-valve" for the limiting of conflict.
Ideologically, whilst the ruling class are ultimately the major beneficiary of the laws they create,
everyone gains something.
2. As Paul Q. Hirst argues, social control is maintained in Capitalist society through a
combination of ideology (whereby people are socialized into an acceptance of basic
values that are acceptable to ruling class interests) and force or the threat of force
(whereby the police / army are able to intervene should conflict threaten to overwhelm
social order).
3. Laws in capitalist society reflect both:
a. Class interests (they ultimately exist to protect the powerful).
b. Structural imperatives (the ability of a capitalist class to both maintain and reproduce
capitalism over time requires certain forms of legal relationship - contract laws, laws
relating to private property and so forth).
4. In terms of law enforcement:
a. The activities of the powerless are carefully scrutinised, whilst the powerful enjoy more
privacy.
b. Certain types of criminal activity are more-likely to be enforced (highly visible forms of
violent crime, rather than "invisible" economic crimes, for example).
c. Different groups in society are treated with greater or lesser severity than others: The
young, Blacks, Working class, "Respectable" upper and middle classes.
5. A major difference between Functionalist and Orthodox Marxist theories is that whilst the
former view law as an extension of the "will of the people" (see Durkheim, for example),
the latter view it as an attempt by the economically powerful to enforce their interests
above those of all other classes.
Orthodox Marxism and Crime: Key Points
Key Sociologists:



Karl Marx.
Paul Hirst "Marx and Engels on Law, crime and Morality" in "Critical Criminology" by
I.Taylor, P.Walton and J.Young, 1975.
R.Quinney "Crime Control in Capitalist Society"
Key Concepts:



Ideology
Power
Economic ownership of means of production.
Key Ideas:




Social Order is based on:
Ideological manipulation of the powerless by the powerful.
Rule of Law.
Force.
Social Control based on:


Socialisation - ideological manipulation (in terms of values, norms and so forth) that seeks
to convince people that the interests of the bourgeoisie are really the interests of
everyone in society.
Force - both through the use of the police as agents of social control and, ultimately, the
armed forces.
Social Conformity:


The creation of ideological frameworks that convince people that such things as class
struggle and class conflict are out-dated concepts - that "society" is composed of
individuals of differing abilities and aptitudes, all of whom have a part to play in the
maintenance of a peaceful, ordered, society.
Economic power - from their economic ownership a ruling class is able to disseminate its
interests and ideas throughout the class structure.
Non-Conformity:
Crime may be a response to structural pressures (poverty, unemployment, social deprivation,
etc.). It may also be a rational response to being "blocked-off" from the possibility of attaining
desired goals legitimately (note the similarity to Merton's concept of anomie argument. The
major difference between the two is that whilst Merton sees the stress on material gain as a form
of "undesirable social aberration", Marxists see greed as being built into the very fabric of
Capitalism).
Political deviance may be an attempt to challenge bourgeois hegemony. That is, the sociallyoppressed may "see through" the ideological distortions of capitalism and consciously attempt to
promote radical / revolutionary change. Such deviance may range from membership of
revolutionary political groups to "terrorism".
The Significance of Power:
Power is a crucial variable in this form of analysis - not just the power to force people to behave
in particular ways, but also the power to make people believe that society is based upon
consensus, equality, political democracy and so forth (ideological power).
Power ultimately rests upon the ownership of the means of production and is, therefore,
theorised in structural terms. It is a person's position in relation to the means of production that
determines whether or not he or she possesses power, rather than it being dependent upon
individual attributes and so forth.
Possession of power is crucial because it enables the powerful to:
1.
2.
3.
Carefully scrutinize the activities of the powerless.
Define certain forms of behaviour as criminal.
Target different social groups as "potentially criminal" (in effect. to create
scapegoats (Blacks, Jews, young working-class males...) that deflect attention and
criticism away from the crises created by the capitalist system.